


5 times Klaus almost says "I love you" and one time Dave does

by bleachblond_baby



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: 5 Times, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Established Relationship, Fluff, Klaus Hargreeves-centric, M/M, My First AO3 Post, No Angst, No Incest, No Smut, Sober Klaus Hargreeves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:14:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27077074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bleachblond_baby/pseuds/bleachblond_baby
Summary: hello all and welcome to the clown factory.this is my first ao3 post and it is literally Just Fluff (because im lovey dovey <3). klaus mentions that he was sickly as a child so if that makes you uncomfy that is totally fine, feel free to come back when i post something else <3
Relationships: Allison Hargreeves & Klaus Hargreeves, Diego Hargreeves/Lila Pitts, Klaus Hargreeves & Vanya Hargreeves, Klaus Hargreeves/David "Dave" Katz, Sissy Cooper/Vanya Hargreeves
Comments: 4
Kudos: 69





	5 times Klaus almost says "I love you" and one time Dave does

**Author's Note:**

> hello all and welcome to the clown factory.  
> this is my first ao3 post and it is literally Just Fluff (because im lovey dovey <3). klaus mentions that he was sickly as a child so if that makes you uncomfy that is totally fine, feel free to come back when i post something else <3

1.

Klaus is searching for a hairpin for Vanya when the door rings, so Allison lets Dave in. Dave somehow always forgets to take his keys when he goes grocery shopping, or so he says. Klaus knows it's actually a lie and he always has his keys but for some reason his boyfriend loves when Klaus lets him in. 

Klaus stops at the counter to kiss his cheek and resumes his place behind Vanya's chair, braiding and twisting her hair around while Allison paints her nails. 

"You're gonna look so pretty, Vanny," he says to her, "Swoon Sissy off her feet." 

Vanya giggles and blushes. 

Allison smiles from her chair, "Do you remember when I would paint your nails during dinner?" 

Klaus snorts, "Lord, yes. Dad hated that so much.Tried to tell me I got asthma because of it." 

"You used to steal Allison's skirts," Vanya speaks up. 

"That was you?" Allison asks. 

"Who else? Diego?" 

The three of them continue to giggle fondly while getting Vanya ready, with Dave smiling at them from where he was putting groceries in the cupboards. 

The next day, when Klaus comes home from work, Dave hands him a box. Mom only ever bought them name brands for all medicines they ever needed but generic or not, an inhaler is still a peculiar gift. 

"I haven't had an asthma attack since I was seventeen, you know that," Klaus says, raising his eyebrows.

"Yeah, but," Dave mumbles, "just to be safe. "

"And I also have an inhaler." 

"It's expired, actually. And you never take it anywhere." 

Klaus looks up at his boyfriend, "Yeah, cause I haven't had an asthma attack in thirteen years." 

Dave thins his lips and looks into his eyes, "Yes but… I thought..," he takes a second to gather his thoughts, "you sit in those fumes all day and if it rains you can't open the windows or it'll rain inside. I just want you to be safe cause I-I care about you." 

Klaus takes the inhaler from Dave and when he looks at him, his lips and shiny eyes he almost says it -  _ I love you _ . But all that comes out is a meek "thank you". And just like that the moment is over, Dave already chatting rapidly about what to make for dinner, and Klaus cradling the inhaler to his chest like it's his most prized possession. 

It rattles around in his brain for a bit, how close he was to saying it. It's heady. He almost wants to let himself do it next time. 




He's at work the next time, window open, inhaler dutifully sitting on his workstation. Almost all of today’s customers asked about it, and he’d recited the story for each and everyone of them - not that it bothered him in the least. Never hurts to remember his beautiful, smart and incredible boyfriend. 

A few of the old ladies asked when they’d get married - to which he’d smiled and responded with a reluctant ‘I dunno’. It’s a thought that makes him warm all over. He’ll have to file this thought away for later, for late one night when Dave’s laying next to him sleeping and the moon hits his face at just the right angle and he looks vaguely sculpted out of marble. 

Dave comes in just as a client leaves and he comes bearing a donut from Griddy’s and tea. Agnes had started selling turmeric tea for him more or less, when him and his siblings were high school aged and Diego would sneak out to get them donuts and warm drinks in the middle of the night. The first time, Diego got him hot chocolate instead of tea because he was allergic to caffeine. He’d always been the sickly one of the bunch - asthmatic, allergic to caffeine and to pollen, frail bones, falling sick at the slightest gush of wind. 

“It’s turmeric, with honey and milk and cinnamon, just like you like it. And the donut’s jelly filled. It’s, uh, it’s strawberry jam.” says Dave, pressing the paper bag into his hands and a kiss to his cheek. He puts the paper cup on Klaus’s workstation, next to his inhaler, which he inevitably sees, “Would you look at that.” 

Dave is happily chatting with one of his coworkers, a lovely woman nicknamed Cha-cha. He’s already moved on from the moment, but Klaus is seemingly stuck on the tea’s steam carefully escaping the plastic lid and the crinkling paper bag in his hand. The only one person in the whole wide world knows how he likes his tea and donut and it’s Agnes, who’s been serving him said tea and donuts for fifteen years. 

He stays relatively silent during most of the conversation, his mind still plagued with this realisation and the suddenly no longer quiet thought of marriage. Horrible, he’s never been particularly romantic. 

A client enters for their appointment, and although they reassure that they can take as much time as they need, Dave’s too much of a sweetheart to stay after this. He kisses Klaus’s cheek again and waves from the glass door, but Klaus smells the tea and almost says it -  _ I love you _ . All that comes out is a small, “bye”.

That night, Dave falls asleep on the couch during the movie he insisted on watching and Klaus thinks back to the tea as the characters on screen go about the plot. What’s that Lemony Snicket romantic shit that Ben used to read to the stray cats on the property say? 

_ “I will love you if I never see you again, and I will love you if I see you every Tuesday.”  _

He looks at Dave, his head lolled back on the couch and mouth half opened and thinks,  _ yeah, I could get behind that. _




They’re at the Hargreeves mansion with Claire and Klaus is so, so in love. Claire is a little ball of sunshine whatever she does, be it riding high on her Uncle Luther’s shoulders, or petting the cats on the property with her Uncle Ben. 

Vanya and Sissy are also here with Harlan, Sissy’s son. Harlan is slightly older than Claire and rather shy and non-verbal, but he smiles at her and watches her play tea party with their Uncle Diego and Auntie Lila from his place on the couch next to Vanya, who he’s snuggled up into. 

Him and Dave are snuggled up on an armchair when Claire comes up to ask if they want to play with her with her dolls Klaus can tell him and Dave have the same thought -  _ “I am only a man.” _

So they play with her, Allison taking pictures because she is a big softie like that. 

Klaus is trying to put a jacket on his doll when he looks up. Claire is talking to Dave a mile a minute about something Klaus is sure is going way over his head but it’s such a sweet thing, so beautiful, he can’t take his eyes off of it. 

After dinner is over, and after everyone, including Sissy, Lila and Dave kiss Claire goodnight on her little forehead, they lie in bed awake. Dave is hugging Klaus from behind when he speaks up, “She’s so cute, it can’t be legal, can it?”

Klaus laughs under his breath, “Let me turn over, I wanna see you.”

“Noooo,” says Dave, as childish as he possibly can, tightening his arm around Klaus’s chest and rubbing his forehead into Klaus’s bare back, before loosening his arms and letting Klaus turn over. 

“I can’t fucking stand you, you know?” he says when Dave throws a leg over his legs, although it’s so far away from the truth - Klaus is so in love. 

“No, Klaus, don’t say bad words,” says Dave, barely holding in his own laughter. Klaus scoffs into his sweetheart’s chest before finally settling his forehead against his collarbone. 

And here, in his messy childhood bedroom, on his shitty mattress, with Dave’s strong arms around him and the thick blanket - his room was always the coldest, no matter what, which didn’t at all help him in his sickly childhood - he remembers the inhaler, and the tea, and Dave listening to his niece talk animatedly about her dollie. He thinks about it, about saying it -  _ I love you _ . But all he ends up doing is mumbling a ‘goodnight’ to Dave’s chest. 

Who’s to say Dave didn’t say  _ it  _ when he said ‘goodnight’ back?

4.

When Klaus comes home, it smells like cookies, which is a smell he hasn’t felt since the October of 2007, on his eighteenth birthday, when Mom baked them all about twelve batches of cookies and a gigantic birthday cake for all of them. They held a banquet with catering too, but that was just for Reginald to flaunt his wealth to his other wealthy peers while ignoring his children’s emotional needs even harder than before, but the big, leaning towards one side cake and the batches and batches of cookies were for them and Mom and Pogo alone.

Dave is whistling a tune from his place in front of the stove, stirring something in a red pot, like he’s a fucking 1950’s cartoon. It’s sorta sweet. There’s a song with bass and drums and some sappy lyrics. Horrible, Klaus is so in love.

He stops at the stove to kiss Dave’s cheek - and isn’t that a theme with them? Kisses for hello and for goodbye and for everything in between and for  _ I love you  _ especially. 

“You ready for tomorrow?” Dave asks. 

They’re leaving for Dallas to visit Dave’s family and Klaus knows how important family is for his boyfriend and so no, he’s very much not ready. Between the sobriety bracelet he still wears, the sobriety coin he takes everywhere, the meds he takes for his anxiety and his overall colorful history, he’s fucking terrified that they won’t like him and then what? He’ll have to go apartment hunting with Vanya and move into a shitty apartment and go sad to his job and miserably keep his inhaler on his workstation. 

“Yeah.” 

“Don’t worry, they’ll love you. Well except uncle Ryan, but he hates pretty much every person younger than he is, including me, so you know.” 

Klaus giggles and shakes his head, already on his way to change in loungewear, “What are the cookies for?”

Dave makes a small hurt sound, “I feel bad if i don’t bring anything.”  _ Of fucking course he does. _

The next morning (still that night?) Dave wakes him up with a kiss on the forehead, all too cheery for it being five in the morning. And that’s a theme again, isn’t it? Dave is cheery and sweet and Klaus is so, so in love and God fuck him, he’d say  _ it  _ if he wasn’t so fucking sleepy as he’s getting in the car and cranking up the heat. 

5.

Dave  _ never _ gets drunk. However, he is too much of a sweetheart to say no to the glass of wine Ms. Katz pours him and he  _ is  _ a lightweight. And thus, enter the stage : tipsy Dave. Dave’s always been affectionate, kissing Klaus before he leaves for work, holding his hand when walking down the street, more often than not presenting Klaus with flowers when coming home from the salon but tipsy Dave is just something else. 

Klaus is sitting on the couch with his back against the arm, watching Dave’s recital from third grade on the TV when Dave comes out of the kitchen all giggly and eyes all shiny and my oh my Klaus is so in love. Dave sits down next to him and then promptly falls over Klaus, head settled on his chest and the rest of his body cocooned between Klaus’s legs. For their position to be in any way comfortable, Klaus has to let his right leg fall to the ground. It’s, all in all, way too agreeable of a compromise for Klaus. 

“‘M sorry I drank,” he mumbles into Klaus’s collarbone, and then kisses it for good measure. Klaus can’t help but giggle, either at little Davie on the TV screen blowing his little lungs out playing the flute or his pouty and tipsy boyfriend, it doesn’t matter. 

Klaus kisses his hair and wraps his arms around Dave’s head, “I’ll forgive you, this one time only,” he says, barely keeping a lid on his giggles. 

Ms. Katz plops down in the armchair left of the couch and laughs under her breath while looking at them, “Davie, my dear, get off of Klaus. Surely, you wouldn’t want his fella to find you, huh?”

And Dave looks up at him, all wide eyes and shiny lips and in the meekest voice possible, he asks, “You got a fella?” 

Klaus barely keeps himself from laughing, “Some doorknob I met a while ago.”

Dave hits his forehead to Klaus’s sternum lightly and groans. Horrible, Klaus loves him so much. 

Ms. Katz laughs under her breath. Maggie, Dave’s sister, comes to the living room and giggles on her way to the armchair on the right of the couch, “Why’re you sad, Davie?”

Dave groans again and speaks with this cheek smushed into Klaus’s chest, words slurring, “Klaus has a fella,” he says with the most whiny voice he can muster. 

Maggie snorts but then covers her face with a hand, “Tough.”

Klaus runs his fingers through Dave’s hair, “What if we ran away together? And we’d never see him again huh?”. Dave nods into his chest, seemingly satisfied with this conclusion. 

The next morning, when Dave sits gloomily at the dining table for breakfast, Klaus almost says  _ it.  _ It’s unbelievable he’s survived this long. 

  
  


+1. 

Klaus is fixing up his hair in the mirror because it’s date night and he is determined to say  _ it.  _ The door is open and the light of the bedroom filters through it. Until Dave settles himself against the frame. He’s so handsome in his blue sweater and black jeans and Klaus loves him like the sunflower loves the sun. 

“Hey, so,” he begins, “I, uh, I was wondering if uh, if you’d wear my dogtags? You don’t have and it’s not like I wear them anyway but I saw them and I just thought… I love you and--”

“Oh my fucking god I can’t fucking stand you, I was gonna say it first.”

Dave’s eyes are wide and scared and he can’t understand, “What?”

“I love you too. I wanted to say it first though.”

Dave snorts, “I can’t believe you, I can’t believe I love you.”

Klaus scowls, “Give me that,” he says, snatching the dogtags from Dave’s hand and draping them around his neck, “Now I’m a military wife.” 

Dave grabs his arm and pulls him into his chest, Klaus yelping, and wraps his arm around his boyfriend. He kisses his hair and then lays his head there.

It takes a long time before anyone says anything. It’s Klaus, “Should go soon. We’ll miss the reservations.”. Dave hums, then unwraps himself from around Klaus. 

“You look so pretty, look like a prince.”

“Pot calls the kettle black.”

Dave seems to sober up for a second, “When were you gonna do it?”

“Tonight, before bed. But then some doorknob did it without realising.”

Dave grins and takes his hand, leading him out of the bathroom, all that southern charm suddenly back, “Your doorknob of a fella botherin’ ya? How ‘bout you run away with me instead?”

Klaus groans, “One of these I’ll actually get rid of you, I swear.”. Dave snorts and wraps his left arm around Klaus’s waist as they go down the stairs. As they get off the first flight of stairs, they see Ms. Lewinski coming up the stairs. They wave to her and she smiles sweetly to them, but then her eyes drift down Klaus’s chest, to where Dave’s dogtags hang and her smile widens. Klaus blushes. 

Before they exit the apartment building, Klaus grabs Dave’s arm and stops him. 

“What’s up?” asks Dave, suddenly worried. Klaus leans into his space, up on his tippy toes, and kisses Dave’s pouty lips. “What’s that for?” he laughs.

“Why, David Katz, don’t you know I got a sweet tooth?”

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> im also on tumblr @purples-sunflowers and twitter @moo_mins_valley!! feel free to comment and give criticism <33  
> have a good one yall


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